Laundry and Boredom in Suburbia

Okay, I have never seen or heard of a Laundromat named “Wash’By’Gosh, the Laundromat across the street from our townhouse is actually named “Westport Cleaners and Coin Laundry”. It doubles as a business with “Westport Hair” and has at least two apartment units above it. Something in me suspects that the real name is a funnier one than the name I pulled out of my tookus. Neither is as funny as “Piggly Wiggly”.

I don’t like to take too much creative license in my essays normally. That, in my opinion, is too close to writing fiction for which I have no talent. On this occasion I make an exception to that rule but only with the name. The rest of my little reflection laid out below is all taken from my life.

I really hope there is a “Wash’By’Gosh somewhere. The world would seem a little sadder without one.




Once again here I am, damn near broke and bored stupid. Therefore, I take the last of the loose change on hand and go to the Laundromat. The washer is acting stranger than a reality show celebrity on crack so I decide to not risk doing the wash at home; besides, I want to get out for a bit.

It seems like I’m constantly doing laundry. At home and abroad I am forever washing clothes. I am constantly washing basket after basket of stinking wrinkled thread worn shirts, sweaters and pants but not socks. There are no socks in my laundry. There are no socks because I no longer even bother with socks anymore. I just wear them until they become to stiff and gruesome to put on my feet or until they crawl away to follow hopes and dreams of their own. When I run out I simply buy new ones. They are a replaceable commodity in my life not unlike toilet paper or employment. Socks aside, I feel like an undue amount of time in my life is spent doing laundry. I know that I did three loads less than a week ago, now I got three more loads to do. I can’t blame it on anyone else, Shanzi washes her own clothes and when she feels industrious, brave or both she also washes some of mine. That is if I let her. I am responsible for this high maintence wardrobe. Christ! How can one person wear that much clothing in so short a span of time? Who?!? I don’t think I own that much goddamn clothing.

I load up my tiny economy car and head the 25 or so yards down the street to the Laundromat. I realize it is a short distance to justify driving when I constantly carry on about conservation and eviromentalism but who the Hell wants to make six round trips down the street and mind you, there is no sidewalk, carrying smelly overburdened laundry baskets? The Earth will survive this minor assault and in any case my guilt over this should be nullified by the fact I I recycle and practice reasonable amounts of conservation on a daily basis. In fact the car Shanzi and I share is an excellent example of the personal ecologicaly sound practices I apply everyday in my life. The car itself has an inbuilt environmentale consciousness. You see, there are times it chooses not to run at all so as to cut down on pollution and reduce the fuel burden . It is also such a gamble to drive it long distances that most of the time I simply take public transit or walk rather than drive. A car sitting cold and unused outside your apartment doesn’t consume ANY fuel (Fossil or otherwise) or emit green house gases in any quantity. You just don’t get more eco-friendly than that! Ralph Nader and Clarke Howard would both be proud of me. I am saving both the environment and money with my car.

Tic Toc, Tic Toc.

I load up the car with dirty clothes and make my way to the "Wash'by'Gosh" laundromat. As i enter the building I take in my suroundings and the suroundee's. The folks in that lot consisted of several different stereo-types. There are two loudish women in their early twenties(?) discusing sex toys and pet grooming, a faimly of wary Latin Americans, an angry looking grand-mother type and three white males who depite bearing of varying ages all shared a singular "mad fishermen" sensibility. Luckily for the Suspension of disbelief of this narrative there were no surly teens or looming black men, and sadly, no laundromat vixens (Like those portrayed in jean advertisements) present. Having met the players, I settle in for the long haul at “Wash’By’Gosh” and commence with the dull task at hand. I have with me an ipod and a cache of Cigarettes to make being here just about a passable event. A bottle of carefully camouflaged whiskey also plays a key role. I resort to the camouflage tactics with the booze not out of respect for laundromat rules or a sense of public sensibility but because I don’t want to share.

I finally get through all three loads and just when I think I’m done I realize I have to wash my sports jacket* too because, while it doesn’t look too bad** it smells a little whiffie. I have a job interview tomorrow and I will want...no need this my favorite coat. I wish to look presentable and stay warm and do both if possiable. That can be trickey here in Washington even in the high summer and this is January I'm dealing with now. This is the Pacific Northwest Coast. It’s always wet and cold. This is a temperate rainforest on the Canadian Border after all. The jacket is of course “dry clean only” but I have neither the time nor the cash for that option.
In any case or this particular case actually, I’ll want the jacket and I’ll want it clean.

I am going to have to wash it too.

Maybe, I reason, if I use the gentle cycle and only tumble dry it on a low heat this should work. I have to get the smell of four different colognes, two different perfumes, one cat and uncounted volumes of carcinogenic smoke out of it. With care there should be no problem, maybe even that odd stain next to the collar I always hide with a scarf will come clean.

One last load.

Shit, fine then.

I put in all but one of the two bucks worth of quarters the washing Nazis require for a load and as I try to put in the last, my last, quarter into the washer the damn machine won't accept it. Upon closer examination, I realize the Queen of England is on the damn thing. The quarter that is, not the washing machine. It’s a fucking goddamn Canadian quarter but I've already put the soap and my jacket in the machine so I’m screwed. I try to bum a quarter from one of the other winners in the Laundromat The change machine they have here in “Wash’By’Gosh” is only giving out nickels and dimes as change and the washing machines and dryers don’t accept anything but quarters…American quarters. Here again the Universe bites me in the ass as no one will bum me a quarter or they don’t speak English. At least they pretend to not speak English maybe I should have been more generous with my whiskey earlier.

I have to go to the 7-11 or Chevron or whatever the hell P.O.S. convenience store it is next door and I have to buy a “Green” slurpee. What the hell flavor is “Green”? I have to buy a green slurpee because they are out of “Coke” and “Blue” flavor. More importunately however, I have to by a green slurpee because the 7-11 doesn’t give change without a purchase.

I head back to the Wash’By’Gosh, green slurpee in hand where I sit there smelling the fumes of soap and fabric softener which is actually kind of nice but unfortunately it also mixed with the body odor from my fellow washers. Keep in mind when I say washers I mean washers of clothes not washers of themselves. I don’t think some of these folks have personal hygiene habits any better than those of my socks if their fragrance is any indication. At least my socks have the courtesy to go missing when they get whiffie. I start the machine and take a huge pull off my watery unnaturally colored drink and wish it was cut with some chemical agent stronger than green dye # 7.

The Laundromat itself, unlike Washington State summers, is hot, and humid. It’s also furnished with cracked plastic uncomfortable chairs with only AARP and Field & Stream magazines to read. They have a T.V. with cable here but it is always either on a sports event that I don’t give a shit about, usually NASCAR, or on “Telemundo”. Don’t get me wrong, Telemundo looks like some pretty entreating stuff, especially when compared to NASCAR but I don’t speak Spanish. I do watch it on occasion but only when they have on Latin Americas funniest home Videos or those peculiar children’s shows with those barely dressed “Hee-Haw Hot” women on them. It’s when I watch the latter that I really wish I understood Spanish so I could figure out why porn stars are showing up in children’s shows. I am becoming increasingly restless and dangerously sober not to mention the temperature is becoming very uncomfortable. While I appreciate the climate change I have had enough of this place so I decide to for-go the dryer and just let my jacket air dry overnight. Here on the coast it won’t matter if it’s a little damp with our climate here a “little damp” is a lot dryer than most things including the clothes on my back. I can see my building out the window and it is now become more appealing to go home and be bored than stay here and be bored.

I finally get home where I just collapse on the bed for half an hour. Sleep proves as elusive as hot ass at closing time down at our local bar the Knotty Pine. The cable is full of programs more dull than my life presently and Shanzi is gone to her Dads for a few days so I try to come up with a productive way to ignore the rising pointless feeling growing in me. I try to first paint then draw then write but the muse fails me. Nothing comes. The “muse” is off somewhere else. Probably off fucking “talent”. Neither of the two is present now so maybe they are off together somewhere, right?

Lacking anything else to do until morning, I get on the computer and download porno off the internet just to kill three or four hours. It's just all crap there too. Every two hundred photos there is something somewhat interesting or at least something I have not seen before. Eventually even porn fails to entertain, so I think "I'll go to McDonald's” Westport lacks even that but there is one in neighboring Hoquiam. “I'll go to McDonald's and that will kill some time. I'll go to McDonald's and buy a milkshake and fries."

I then drive to McDonald's (After a stop at the ATM to get out a twenty I was saving for the rent or food) and they're closed. They’re fucking CLOSED at 10pm and I just sit there in the parking lot wondering what to do with myself. I think, "I'll just drive around aimlessly, that's what I'll do, I'll drive around aimlessly, I'll explore the city that I live in" but you know what? It's all just closed strip malls and 7-11's and gas stations and shoe stores.

I then think about crashing into the underpass wall of the freeway but I don't want to do that because it will probably just hurt like Hell, not actually do something as productive as kill me. In any case, it will fuck up my insurance rates, which are already fucked up as is. Therefore, I just go home and wish I had some drugs or booze to do, just to relieve the horrible awful boredom of it all. Then I think "I should clean up the apartment, I should be responsible", but I just want to lay there in bed and stare at the ceiling. Later I think that maybe I’m hallucinating all this. Probably not though, if I were hallucinating it would be INTERESTING but it isn't so this must be real. Then after a while I just give up. I head upstairs and I take my useless antidepressants and some Tylenol PM, curl up and as the Tylenol kicks in and I begin to drift off into blessed unconsciousness an “off” smell catches my attention. It’s then I realize that my sheets are dirty because I forgot to take them to the Laundromat.



*I will not comment on the Who plays sports in a Sports Jacket cliche
**The beauty of black and khaki houndstooth patterns becomes obvious when examined from a stain-concealment point of view